Railex 2013

The show took place on October 5th and 6th, 2013 and was held at 1000 Lakeside, Western Rd, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3EN
A FREE Historic bus to the Show was provided by The Southampton & District Transport Heritage Trust from Cosham train station and return.

Layouts

The following Layouts attended:

Alkham (EM) – Ian Hollis
Alkham showed a might-have-been branch set in East Kent in the late 1950s; the last months of steam.

Ashbury Brook (EM)
Ashbury Brook is a small town station located on a fictitious link line between Bridestowe and Ashbury on the Devon and Cornwall Railway (LSWR) later Southern. The station is close to Dartmoor and has a small goods and coal yard. There is also a farming equipment factory to support. A regular single carriage train operates for local passengers and walkers who are ready to explore Dartmoor plus those who are travelling to and from Bude or Plymouth. The layout period is just pre-World War 2 somewhere about 1937.
The layout is 4mm/foot EM Gauge with all points and signals rod operated from a lever group at one end. The signals are lit, along with various other buildings and track end lamps.

Bluewater Haven (HO) – American Model RailRoad Group
An American lakeside switching layout providing a good degree of loading and unloading a railroad ferry and the sorting of cars and train assembly in a tricky yard with limited space. Many an hour can be wasted (or used up) trying to sort the cars to the spots where you want them, and the general public were very welcome to have a go.
This layout was one of two, built in the same six months period by two individuals of our group.

Cromford and High Peak (N) – Carl Godbehere
Taking inspiration from a “Plan of the Month” in Railway Modeller, Cromford is not an exact scale model of the real thing, but is a representation of the Midland main line through the Peak District in the 50s and 60s. Although the real thing closed in the late 60s, a stretch of the imagination can take place occasionally when 70s vintage locos and colour schemes appear. It is a watch the trains go by layout for the main line but there is the added interest of the Cromford and High Peak, Sheep Pasture Bottom in the middle of the layout which leads to High Peak Junction (Not Modelled) on the left hand side.

Glasgow Emerald (British HO) – Wealden Railway Group
Glasgow Emerald is my third essay into British HO. It was constructed to provide a station which could deal with the sort of passenger service my older branch terminus had, plus some. It also offers a variety of freight operation, on the low level yard in front of the passenger station. Emerald was originally used by the West Highland. When the main Glasgow terminus was constructed, Emerald went into a decline.
The main idea behind the layout was to see just how much operation could be placed in a 2m x 30cm box and still have scenery. Also not have the problem of freight or passenger operations, each to the exclusion of the other.

Greenfield Valley – Richard Pretious
This is a freelance layout of American Narrow Gauge Railroad. The railroads included in this layout are Colorado and Southern, Denver Rio Grande Western, etc. The Layout is fully DCC operated via Digitrax control system. Buildings are built from wood kits, trackwork is Peco 0-16.5 using Peco point motors with auxiliary switches to ensure good reliable operation.

Greyness Steelworks (3mm) – South Downs and Solent Group of the 3mm Society
The 3mm layout represents a steelworks set in North Lincolnshire and can be set in the period 1948 to 1968. A double track runs in from the right hand side and via reception sidings and a works platform leaves the left side as a single track. Track is 12mm gauge using hand built points with straight track work from the 3mm society.
Typical locos and stock are seen supplying the steelwork with raw materials and taking away finished steel products. Only one entrance to the works is on view, the other entrances are located off scene to the left. Locos from the nearby railway workshops where seen on running in trips. This group are associate members of our Club and meet in our clubroom on average once a month. If you are interested in joining them or finding out more about 3mm modelling please see the 3mm Society Section of this web site.

Maidwell (OO) – North Gwent Railway Modellers
In 1893, the Midland Railway constructed a short single line branch from their main line at Kettering to Loddington to tap the ironstone prevalent in the area. Had this branch been extended through to Rugby, it would have passed near the village of Maidwell and formed a useful cross country route between the Midlands and the East coast.
Our layout depicts how the station at Maidwell may have appeared around 1930 in the L.M.S. period with rolling stock passing through from the pre-grouping companies at each end of the line (M.R. & L.N.W.R.) and later L.M.S. As Maidwell is midway between Rugby and Kettering, we assumed the layout would have a passing loop and we incorporated a small goods yard and an ironstone quarry to feed the ironworks that actually existed at Cransley on this line a little nearer Kettering. The branch line serves a number of small villages and ironstone quarries.

Melcombe Abbas (OO) – Romsey and District Railway Modellers Society
Melcombe Abbas is the terminus of a little known branch line in southern Dorset. The trains are short as befits such a location, with the stock usually provided by British Railway’s Southern Region. A failed light commercial complex is perhaps not out of keeping in this peaceful rural scene. What it may ever have produced is still a mystery to us. However, it does receive a parcels train every so often which is presumably loaded/unloaded during the hours of darkness as there is never any activity to be seen during the daylight hours. This has led to speculation in some quarters that it may well be used as a secret government establishment of some kind.

Pen-y-Bwn – Bognor Regis MRC
Pen-y-Bwn is a West Country community somewhere in GWR territory. The model represents a small country station on a branch line sometime around nationalisation.
You can still see a GWR Auto-train shuttle working its way along the line alongside diesel railcars and multiple units. There are also through workings from London expresses as well as cross country passenger trans. General goods traffic can be seen as well as the stone traffic from the quarry.
Motive power is a mixture of pre and post nationalisation Prairies and Pannier Tanks, Collets and even something larger, along with the inevitable diesels.

Purbeck (009) – John Thorne
A freelance 009 layout illustrating the ball clay industry of the Isle of Purbeck: it is set in the 1950s and assumes that the industrial lines on the Isle of Purbeck were extended to not only carry the ball clay but to include a passenger and local freight service. These trains run into a station located at Corfe. From the station a line extends through the Dorset countryside covered in the local gorse into the works of the Purbeck Clay Company. The Layout is not intended to be a model of the actual industrial lines that existed but illustrates the ball clay.

RheingauZ (Z) – David and Iris Guscott
RheingauZ features a section of the River Rhein in Germany, based on the vineyards around the towns of Rüdesheim on the East Bank and Bingen, with the station at Bingerbrück, on the West Bank of the river. There are Rhein barges and pleasure boats moving along the river as well as German, Swiss and Austrian rail traffic. This was just before the new High Speed line was built between Frankfurt Airport and Köln and therefore all the goods rail traffic is on the East Bank and the major Passenger rail services on the West Bank. The layout was featured in the October 2012 Continental Modeller.

Soberton is a “might have been” layout based on a fictitious Meon Valley Railway Station somewhere between Wickham and Droxford in Hampshire and depicts what would have happen if the line itself had survived and flourished as originally intended when opened in 1903.

St. Vincent Road (OO) – Victory Model Railway Club
The layout depicts a through station with four platforms faces, two for the main line and one each for the branch (preserved) and the slow line, with two fast through roads in the middle. There is a separate goods loop with a small goods yard behind the main station. At the right hand end of the station is an oil terminal, a small station and associated sidings for the preserved branch. A little further along on the right is a valley with a double and single track span, a canal underneath and village above. Situated behind the branch station is a camping coach on the lifted down goods line and Arkwrights’ shop from ‘Open All Hours’

Tawford (OO) – Nick Warren
Welcome to Tawford, an imaginary town set somewhere in North Devon. The time period reflects my fondest memories of growing up, when my bedroom was overlooking Laira depot in Plymouth, and countless hours were spent watching HSTs, 47s, 50s, 37s, shunters, freights, mail and parcel trains. As with most layouts, a certain degree of modellers licence has been used. My theory is; if it’s realistic enough, then model it! I have assumed that North Devon was fortunate enough to only suffer rationalisation rather than closure of many lines and these are still open, including the entire Southern main line from Exeter to Plymouth via Okehampton & Tavistock, as well as the branch line to Torrington. This creates an opportunity to run many local commuter services as well as through working from London, and regular services to Exeter.

The Glyn Valley Tramway (009) – Peter Binns and Nigel Smith
A Narrow gauge layout in 009 (4mm to the foot scale, 9mm gauge representing 2ft to 2ft 6inch track width).
The layout is a compressed model of Glynceiriog station, the passenger terminal, on the quarry line between an interchange wharf on the Shropshire union canal or the G.W.R. exchange sidings, at Chirk North Wales, and numerous granite quarries 9 miles away. The line opened in 1873 and closed in 1935.
The layout is 7ft long by 2ft 6in deep, with Peco 009 track laid straight onto the baseboards. The hills are made from Polystyrene blocks covered in grass mat, with scratch built buildings, constructed from card and plasticard.

Umbridge (N) – Railway Enthusiasts Club. Farnborough
Umbridge is the Railway Enthusiasts’ Club’s ‘N’ gauge layout, still under construction, and comprises a four-track main line and a single-track branch-line, built on a set of 10 base-boards, with a central operating well, in a space of 24ft by 8ft.
The fast-up, fast-down, slow-up, slow-down and the branch are all controlled independently. The main-line tracks are continuous loops, with Umbridge station the centre-piece of one side of the layout, with adjacent exchange sidings and a small loco servicing depot. Each loop has a through line and a platform line at the station and 4 roads in the partially hidden, 16 road fiddle yard.
The branch is an end-to-end line, running from an Umbridge main-line bay platform, crosses the main lines and carries on round the layout to St. Georges Quay, with a harbour terminal and transfer facilities for ferry passengers.

This layout is built to O9 scale which is 7mm to the foot on 9mm track and represents a fictitious fifteen inch gauge estate railway such as that built for the Duke of Westminister at Eaton Hall by Sir Arthur Heywood in 1895.
The variety of loads carried makes for an interesting model; look out for milk, potatoes, fruit, coal, timber, bricks, manure and more. The basic layout consists of two distinct scenes one featuring the estate works yard with office, loco shed and workshop, smithy and stables and the other a bridge over a stream. Optional modules include a charcoal burner’s camp, a woodland scene, a halt, a cottage and a vegetable garden. For more information see the F&DMRC Layout Section of this web site. For more photos see the Watt Estate page on this website.

Zwiesboden (HO) – Derek Gillkerson
The idea of this layout was inspired by looking at the tour brochure of “EASSONS Coaches Ltd” Several years ago my wife and I thought we would like the tour of the “Bavarian Forests” that was advertised within that brochure, this we did. The Hotel that the tour use is in the Bavarian town of Bodenmais, where there is a standard gauge single track railway line operated by the company called “Waldbahn” which I am told is translated to “Forest Train”, this line goes from Bodenmais to Zwiesel (Bay).

Modelling Demonstration

South Hants Model Railway Club
Members brought some of their on-going projects to show how they do things.

Traders

There was Trade Support from the following:

AAR Models ~ Trade
AAR Models offer a wide range of diecast vehicles.

Masterpiece Figures ~ Trade
Masterpiece by Falcon Figures has been producing quality figures for both 4 and 7mm scales with an emphasis on cab crews for over 15 years. With the availability of super detailed locomotives, Masterpiece was offering cab crews that are specifically designed to fit each of these products.

Iron Horse Video ~ Trade
Railway DVDs.

Kytes Lights ~ Trade
We were pleased to welcome back Joe and Kytes Lights to our show this year. If you need anything ‘lighting up’ then this was the stand to answer your questions.

Noodle Books ~ Trade
Kevin Robertson, Railway Author and Bookseller, was pleased to offer for sale a wide range of books and videos from all major suppliers. A selection of local interest and bargain books were on offer and advise on out of print titles without obligation.